Say you learned that Al Capone was your father.
That's what middle-aged, mild-mannered Gabriel Freeman discovered when, over dinner one night, his aged mother spilled the beans. But then, maybe it was all in her head, a shocking tale concocted to rouse her placid sone out of the doldrums.
SON OF A GUN is a memoir, a thriller; and both historical and literary fiction. The little we know about Al Capone, the infamous Chicago crime boss, is only a fragment of the complex man Gabriel's once-dazzling mother fell for. And the violence for which he is remembered is not a result of mere blood lust but of many disparate elements, all based in recorded historical fact.